Friday, May 9, 2008

Jai & Wal at Portfolio Night London

Free drinks, lots to chat about, old friends and some new ones, a sprinkle of creative directors and six book crits. Blimey, that was a lot to fit into one evening but the guys from ihaveanidea.org pulled it off beautifully. And not just in London, but in 21 other cities around the world on the same night. A global creative orgy. A big hats off to them.

At the beginning we were told to follow a fine tuned system for speed dating with CDs, and were asked to move to the table on your right after every crit. Sorry guys, we weren’t about to follow that – in fact we don’t think anyone did. We went in with a plan of who our book was going to be seen by and nothing was going to get in our way.

Luckily for us the friendly, smiley undertones of 'look at our work' paid off and our night went really well, seeing six creative directors. Quite fantastic. Lots of advice, lots of opinions, lots to take in, lots of contacts and all was lots of fun. We had 15 minutes with each CD to show our stuff, make an impression and try to seal the deal.

The registration was handled by a bunch of first years from St. Martins, good work

The event was hosted by JWT in Knightsbridge

Reunion time in the garden, Rob, Jai, Chris, Wal, Ray and Bernd

The high temperature allured everyone into the garden to drink the nerves away

Don't know 'em, but they're cool

Rob, that's no way to impress Renee

Lusea Arabella Karenza Warner and Tom

Ready for creative torture

Say hello to our new friends Dave, Andy and Jose

Ade and Mike, good luck to them at Lowe

Drop your drinks and gather

While last year was small and cozy, this year was epic

Brian trying to be funny, excuse him he's Canadian

The creative directors waiting for the first wave of fresh blood

The most organized part of the evening

Who do you want to see? You better be quick.

Maybe if we didn't take so many damn pictures we could have got more crits?

After too many critiques Jai's having problems controlling his facial expressions

Now don’t ask how, but we somehow managed to score three placement offers, result! So not only was it a jolly but in the end it turned out to be quite productive and not just for us but a load of our mates too. Well done to everyone.

You can take our word for it being the most useful event in our calendar so far this year. Hopefully we’ll never have to go to another one ever ever again.

"At the beginning we were told to follow a fine tuned system for speed dating with CDs, and were asked to move to the table on your right after every crit. Sorry guys, we weren’t about to follow that – in fact we don’t think anyone did. We went in with a plan of who our book was going to be seen by and nothing was going to get in our way."

When people jump to the wrong table it makes it impossible for the people who actually want to follow the system to move in proper succession. And contrary to your opinion, most people on the night were very considerate of their fellow aspiring creatives.

I'm disappointed that you took advantage of the situation. Particularly when I let you and your partner fill a space in the second period, in addition to your reserved space in the third period.

And then after being given the chance to meet 6 CDs instead of 3, I caught you and your partner trying to split up in the line for the third period, in order to see 9CDs.

And then you joke about it on your blog.

Your selfish attitude will only prove a hinderence to you in this business, not an asset.

Take heed of the impression you've given Wal, even if you think you've a valid reason for your actions.

Just because others might have had a free for all, doesn't mean you'd have to join in and make it worse.

I wasn't there, and didn't know what it was like. You got what you wanted from the evening in the end, so perhaps your approach worked and you're happy enough with kwnoing that if it put one or two noses out of joint.

Knowing what you want and how to get it is a good thing. Certainly people won't hold your hand and guide you into a job, but i'd just watch how some things might sound or how it may come across.

we're not as bad as Brian makes us out to sound or as bad as we may have made ourselves sound. point is, these opportunities don't fall in junior creatives laps very often so we'd be fools not to make the most of the evening. believe us, we didn't go around beating people for seats, we just got to them first. we got the same treatment on the night and didn't mind one bit.